Product coaching is a fast-track to getting better at product management via hands-on work with an expert with many years’ experience in the product world. It’s an instantly-available database of real-world information, and it’s someone who has your back.
If you’re a product leader working with a coach, you can think of your coach as a little like a spare brain – but a brain that has stored inside it a couple of decades’ worth of product development experience – of things like:
- Product vision, strategy and roadmapping
- Data analysis, experimentation, discovery and assumption testing
- User research, interviews, prototyping and A/B testing
- Stakeholder management
- Prioritisation, managing teams, and delivery
- Recruiting, managing upwards, developing people’s skill sets and careers, managing performance
- Budgeting, planning and procuring help from outside sources
- Refereeing arguments, offering a shoulder to cry on or a word of reassurance at a crucial time, or finding new ways to address difficult problems
And all of his means that when you come to your coach with a specific problem or question, she can do two vital and distinct things: she can listen, reflect with you, ask questions and help you to reach a conclusion about what you want to do next. But she can also tell you: ‘when I was in this situation I did X, Y, and Z, and this is what worked, and what didn’t, and why.’
Of course every situation is unique, just as every organisation and every team is unique, which is why when a product coach works with a client the client needs to do 50% of the work, because there will be context and details that only they understand. But in the combination of your immediate needs and the coach’s twenty years of trying nearly everything until something worked, there is an alchemy that can solve real-world problems faster and more efficiently than any other method.
If you’re looking for a product coach, most will offer a short introductory session for free, so that you can explore your needs together and determine whether it’s a good fit. If you’d like to speak to me about coaching for your product team you can book a slot via Calendly.
The Product Pathway 